GIBSONVILLE -- Bennie and Sherry Leach are hopeful their downtown Gibsonville store will be crowded today.

That’s not so much because of a desire for good pre-Christmas sales but because they want a lot of signatures on a giant card destined for Newtown, Conn., following the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Bennie Leach said Gibsonville Town Manager Ben Baxley was planning to send a mass phone message to the town’s residents encouraging them to sign.

Of the town’s 2,800 residents, Leach said, “We hope we get half of them here.”

The store, Sherry’s on Main, is at 106 W. Main St. in Gibsonville.

One person who signed the card wrote the day of the shooting “was my birthday. I’ll never have another one without thinking of all these ‘angels.’”

Leach said people are encouraged to sign the card whether or not they live in Gibsonville. People who had signed the card as of Tuesday afternoon include residents of Burlington and Hillsborough.

Mandy Smith, who sells jewelry at the store, said it’s not hard to imagine a similar tragedy happening anywhere in the country.

“We realize it could be us,” she said. “That is a big reason it strikes home for me.”

“I’ve got three grandchildren in school,” Leach said, explaining one reason he has been touched by the tragedy.

The Leaches left a page of the card for people to sign at Reno’s Pizza and Italian Restaurant on East Main Street in Gibsonville in an effort to get more names and accompanying thoughts.

Leach plans to mail the giant card -- he plans to connect poster-style boards together to make the card once people sign them -- on Thursday using overnight delivery so it gets there Friday.

While she is modest about taking credit, Leach said the card was his wife’s idea.

â–ª An Elon business is collecting money to send to Sandy Hook Elementary.

George Katsoudas, owner of Skid’s of Elon at 134 W. Haggard Ave. near the intersection with Williamson Avenue, said Tuesday he has put out a container to collect donations.

He will match whatever is collected and write a check to send to the school.

Katsoudas, father of a 6-year-old, said he was moved to tears Tuesday watching television reports about the aftermath of the shooting.